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| Have you been abducted by aliens |
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Jerry_B Great Old One Joined: 15 Apr 2002 Total posts: 8265 |
 Posted: 17-08-2006 13:31 Post subject: |
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| coldelephant wrote: | | So they're all making it up? |
What's so hard to understand? I didn't suggest that they were 'making it up'. What I'm saying is the fact that they've decided to to tell a leading figure within the abduction wing of ufology about their experiences suggests that they already consider those experiences to be linked to abductions in some way. They already perceive these experiences as being within the framework of alien abductions. |
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| Jerry_B Great Old One Joined: 15 Apr 2002 Total posts: 8265 |
| Posted: 17-08-2006 13:37 Post subject: |
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| _Lizard23_ wrote: | | There could be twenty times as many people who had exactly the same experiences and not only didn't write to Schreiber but don't think it is anything to do with aliens or abduction. They are probably saying things like 'man, I get that sleep paralysis, it is really fucking weird and scary' or 'send for the two-headed doctor, I am being plagued by succubi' or any number of other things that don't chime so well with the alien abduction experience described in Communion. |
Yes - one could say that one man's abduction experience is another man's rather more mundane sleep paralysis episode, etc.. But if people take their experiences to someone who's known for his books on alien abduction, then it seems to me that they're already pigeon-holing that experience into a certain theme. One could also say that a certain extent they already are willing to believe that alien abductions actually happen, and thus have no qualms reporting this to someone like Streiber. |
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| OldTimeRadio Great Old One Joined: 15 Aug 2005 Total posts: 5539 Location: Cincinnati, Ohio USA Age: 72 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 18-08-2006 02:49 Post subject: |
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| Jerry_B wrote: | | I'm saying that the fact that all of those people have decided to tell Streiber about their experiences seems to point at their thinking from the outset that they've had an abduction experience. They're already pre-disposing themselves to the consideration that they've had an abduction experience in some shape or form. |
I can't escape this feeling that we're talking at complete cross-purposes.
These people wrote to Strieber because he REQUESTED that they do so! Maybe if YOU'D made that request all those canvas mail sacks would have landed on YOUR doorstep.
The fact still remains that 500,000-plus experiencers reported what they interpreted as "alien abductions." They DID NOT report being raped by palm trees, being serenaded by banjo-playing polar bears, meeting dead Presidents in mountain caves, visiting Atlantis, surfing on the Sun or dissecting Chupacabras.
Thus I continue to find half-a-million (plus) more-or-less consistent reports of ANYTHING more impressive and worthy of objective study than half-a-dozen.
This seems to be where you and I differ.
But again (again and again), it does not mean that these putative adventures actually happened! |
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| Jerry_B Great Old One Joined: 15 Apr 2002 Total posts: 8265 |
| Posted: 18-08-2006 10:08 Post subject: |
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I'd argue that 'objective study' isn't going to be carried out by someone like Strieber - although I wouldn't be surpsied if he made it all into a new book  |
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| barfing_pumpkin A pumpkin that pukes. Yes. I am.
Great Old One Joined: 06 Aug 2005 Total posts: 885 Location: Hampshire Age: 41 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 18-08-2006 15:18 Post subject: |
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Okay...so 500,000 people (apparently) read Streiber's book, and became convinced that they themselves had undergone an AA experience.
Bear in mind that, on any given day, 500,000 people (or more, maybe) might consult a medical dictionary, and convince themselves that they have scrofula.
As you can see, when placed in the context of the phenomenon itself, the numbers become pretty meaningless. |
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| Jerry_B Great Old One Joined: 15 Apr 2002 Total posts: 8265 |
| Posted: 18-08-2006 16:04 Post subject: |
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| Perhaps, psycho-socially speaking, you have a large group of people who think that they've had some sort of experience, possibly related to what they think is something to do with alien abduction. IMHO, this doesn't say much more than that. |
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| H_James Ancient Cow (&)
Creepy thing Joined: 18 May 2002 Total posts: 5624 |
| Posted: 18-08-2006 17:45 Post subject: |
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| I'm not entirely sure with whom I'm agreeing with here, but I definitely agree that "alien abduction" experiences should not be taken at face value, but investigated rather as a)a general psychic phenonemon analagous with other stuff like demons and SP and b)a piece of modern folklore. |
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| OldTimeRadio Great Old One Joined: 15 Aug 2005 Total posts: 5539 Location: Cincinnati, Ohio USA Age: 72 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 19-08-2006 01:32 Post subject: |
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| Jerry_B wrote: | | I'd argue that 'objective study' isn't going to be carried out by someone like Strieber - although I wouldn't be surpsied if he made it all into a new book |
The tragedy is that that "objective study" isn't likely to be carried out by ANYBODY. |
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| OldTimeRadio Great Old One Joined: 15 Aug 2005 Total posts: 5539 Location: Cincinnati, Ohio USA Age: 72 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 19-08-2006 01:38 Post subject: |
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| barfing_pumpkin wrote: | | As you can see, when placed in the context of the phenomenon itself, the numbers become pretty meaningless. |
So you're agreeing that half-a-dozen witnesses to Phenomenon X and half-a-million are pretty much the same thing? |
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| OldTimeRadio Great Old One Joined: 15 Aug 2005 Total posts: 5539 Location: Cincinnati, Ohio USA Age: 72 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 19-08-2006 02:16 Post subject: |
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| H_James wrote: | | ...."alien abduction" experiences should....be....investigated....as a)a general psychic phenonemon analagous with other stuff like demons and SP and b)a piece of modern folklore. |
Thank you for contributing some genuine common sense to this discussion. I especially agreed with point A.
But let me quibble just a bit over your "folklore" position. "Alien Abduction" testimonies tend to be FIRST-PERSON accounts, whatever that many ultimately mean. "Folkloric" stories on the other hand tend to start out "This is definitely a true story, because it happened to my best friend's cousin's barber's accountant's lawyer's butler's minister's wife's brother."
PS. And SP is probably not a psychic phenomenon, per se. What is seems to do, at least in my opinion, is to occasionally act as a trigger FOR psychic phenomena. |
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| rynner Location: Still above sea level Gender: Male |
| Posted: 19-08-2006 09:24 Post subject: |
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Q.4(b) Discuss the origin and the development of the 'alien abduction' meme.
You have 40 minutes. Only write on one side of the paper.
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| Jerry_B Great Old One Joined: 15 Apr 2002 Total posts: 8265 |
| Posted: 19-08-2006 09:43 Post subject: |
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| OldTimeRadio wrote: | | But let me quibble just a bit over your "folklore" position. "Alien Abduction" testimonies tend to be FIRST-PERSON accounts, whatever that many ultimately mean. "Folkloric" stories on the other hand tend to start out "This is definitely a true story, because it happened to my best friend's cousin's barber's accountant's lawyer's butler's minister's wife's brother." |
Urban folklore tends to work in that way, but not folklore in more general terms. There are folkloric elements to alien abduction as it's generally told - as I've said earlier, different cultures over time have interpreted the experience in different ways, and that continues today. This doesn't necessarily mean that it's any sort of on-going 'psychic' phenomena either.
As to whether SP triggers any sort of 'psychic' phenomena, one would have to ask if that is just as illusory as the experience is in itself in more general terms. |
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| OldTimeRadio Great Old One Joined: 15 Aug 2005 Total posts: 5539 Location: Cincinnati, Ohio USA Age: 72 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 20-08-2006 06:24 Post subject: |
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| rynner wrote: | Q.4(b) Discuss the origin and the development of the 'alien abduction' meme. You have 40 minutes. Only write on one side of the paper.
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I don't know, but it probably started with an amoeba 3-point-five billion years ago. |
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| OldTimeRadio Great Old One Joined: 15 Aug 2005 Total posts: 5539 Location: Cincinnati, Ohio USA Age: 72 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 20-08-2006 06:33 Post subject: |
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| Jerry_B wrote: | | As to whether SP triggers any sort of 'psychic' phenomena, one would have to ask if that is just as illusory as the experience is in itself in more general terms. |
I suppose it's possible that everything is illusory and nothing is true, in which case this entire discussion becomes more and more and more meaningless - on BOTH sides. |
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| Jerry_B Great Old One Joined: 15 Apr 2002 Total posts: 8265 |
| Posted: 20-08-2006 08:34 Post subject: |
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| You may want to have a look at the Magonia website... |
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